


there is only this, there is only us

by tsunderestorm



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 09:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8745001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: During some down time at Gibraltar, Jesse finds someone he didn't think he'd see again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure there are one hundred and one mcgenji reunion fics, but I couldn't help myself! These headcanons will probably end up jossed at some point, but for now...enjoy the sweetness!
> 
> I'm probably going to write a part 2 to this at some point...

Gibraltar is a hot, muggy hell compared to the dry heat of the tiny town just south of Santa Fe that he’s called home for the past few months. Cleaning up _another_ Deadlock mess as usual, feeding Reyes daily reports for review and polishing before they go to the Strike Commander. It’s nice to have a break, nicer still to know the maximum-security facility has a room with a functional lock and a bed he won’t have to hide his gun beneath the sheets of while he snatches a few minutes of sleep. It’s not that he dislikes this job, no. Quite the opposite, in fact - this is the only job he’s ever had and he’s pretty damn sure he’d like to do it for the rest of his natural-born life so long as it’s Gabe he’s working for. Their job might be the messy stuff, yeah, but it feels damn good to be the guy people look to for protection rather than the guy people want protected from. He’s got a righteous sense of right and wrong, Gabe’s told him over and over, and most of the time he can help everyone he sets out to save.

_Except one_ , his head oh-so-helpfully reminds him. Shaking it for clarity, he sighs. He can’t think about that right now. Can’t think about the night months ago when he’d found Genji broken on the ground outside Shimada Castle. Blood matted into his pretty acid-green hair, his face a slashed battleground of gashes and damn near unrecognizable. Four fingers short of a set, the skin of his arm hanging in meaty flaps like he’d tried to protect himself and failed. Making sounds Jesse had no desire to ever hear a human make again; sick, wet gurgles and soft, weak sounds of pure agony. He’d ending up bringing the enemy down on them in the process, but goddammit, the extraction team had gotten them all out safe and Gabe hadn’t berated him for botching the mission or anything, just took him into his arms and let him cry, let him hug him with Genji’s blood on his hands and told him he was brave and loving. He hasn’t seen Genji since, though it’s not for lack of trying. They won’t tell him how he is, where he is, if he even made it - “classified info”, they call it - and not even Gabe can find out the answers Jesse’s been burning for.

He’s not feeling too charitable towards Overwatch right now, and what had started as gratitude for some time off is slowly turning to resentment as the heat sullies his mood. His hoodie is sticking to his skin, pooling sweat in all the wrong places as he finds his way through a base that’s unfamiliar to him. This is Morrison’s turf, not Reyes’, and Jesse feels about as welcome as the black sheep cousin at the reunion. Overwatch is a well-oiled machine, just a little more clean-cut and professional than Blackwatch. Here, people are a little flashier, their uniforms a little more colorful, their tech a little more up to date. Everything colored a little bit brighter than the monochrome neutrals that characterize Blackwatch. In the span of five minutes he walks by someone wearing a bright red sweater like it’s Christmas, an omnic made of pure-white metal with glowing green lights, someone in old-fashioned army fatigues.

All of a sudden a feeling pulls at his heart and makes his steps pause, some sixth sense for... _something_ telling him to stop, goddammit. He doesn’t get it; there’s no one around that he knows. He’s a faceless, nameless one-man show in a sea of operatives. There’s no Jack barking orders at lines of soldier hopefuls with spit-shined shoes, no Reinhardt and his friendly booming voice. No Ana, with her soothing hands and instant tea packets, no Angela and Torbjörn arguing over something stupid, as always. Slowly, carefully he evaluates his surroundings (it’s feelings like this one, after all, that keep you alive) and decides to proceed, gives a tip of his hat to a uniformed guard nearby and flashes his smile along with his ID badge. Nothin’ to see here, mister; he can hear his younger self saying, only a few years ago he’d have had fingers on his gun as he said it.

There is chatter all around him, friendly banter and if he were in a better state of mind, he might join in. Strike up a conversation, offer to buy a few drinks. Someone beside him asks “Hey bro, did the mission report from the Osaka incident come in?” and the person beside them answers “Not sure, Shimada was handing it in the Strike Commander, ask him.”

Jesse stops dead in his tracks, blood cold. _Shimada_. He hasn’t heard that name in months, not since...well. Not since the whole thing had gone all hush-hush. Jesse practically _runs_ across the cafeteria to grab the guy by the shoulder, shaking him like a rag doll before he can realize he’s doing it.

“Hey there,” he says, letting go of the guy’s collar and backpedaling and fighting very hard to keep his voice somewhere in the realm of _level_.” “Didya just say ‘Shimada’?” He knew Genji had a brother; he’d talked about him. Hanzo, he remembers, the name coming back to him in a rush. He figures it’s probably him, but last he’d heard that guy had fallen off the face of the earth. At least, that’s what their intelligence had told them.

The guy looks Jesse over for a second, apprehensive, taking in his ID badge clipped to his belt before he says “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“Who?” Jesse asks, hands balling into fists at his side. His heart is beating a mile a minute, threatening to go off the rails like a freight train right out of his chest. “Shimada _who_?”

The guy blinks, looking at his friend before he points over Jesse’s shoulder as an answer. “Uh. That guy.”

Jesse turns and follows the guy’s gesture, and it’s that omnic. Getting a closer look at it now, it’s _tiny_ \- a head smaller than him, at least. It’s easy to take in its appearance as it crosses what feels like miles between them, footsteps barely making a sound. _No_ , Jesse thinks, that can’t be a Shimada, that’s an omnic and he’s felt firsthand how uniquely human Genji Shimada is. Sighing, he gives the ominc a weak-ass smile as an apology for startling it.

“Cowboy,” the omnic says in a voice both familiar and foreign, and Jesse’s heart comes to a screeching, grinding halt. He feels like he’s listening to the world muted, like a gunshot’s gone off too close to his ear, like he’s listening underwater. The voice is undeniably _his_ now, his accent still there. Only a little tinny. Like static feedback, crackle on a bad channel on their comms. The only people that call him cowboy are Gabe (who always says it in rolling Spanish, anyway) and...

“...Genji?” Jesse asks, finally succeeding in talking after his voice fails him, and even then still it cracks. His head is spinning, the heat roiling off the tarmac dizzying and oppressive. He’s losing his mind, he thinks. He has to be.

The omnic - no, _Genji_ \- nods and says simply “Yes, Jesse,” before the last few steps between them are crossed at breakneck speed and he’s launching himself into Jesse’s arms. Jesse hears a gasp of surprise, or maybe alarm from the guys he’d been talking to, hears a shout from the guard who’d eyed him suspiciously earlier before he stops listening, before his world narrows to the feel of Genji back in his arms again, alive and safe. His weight is not insubstantial, never has been - muscle and bone like everyone else (and now apparently metal?) but he feels light as a feather when Jesse catches him, hooks his arms under Genji’s ass and holds him tight, nuzzling against the metal plate covering his face.

He’s crying before he realizes it, wetting the smooth metal with hot, salty tears and Genji pulls back to run his hands along Jesse’s stubbly face, cupping his cheeks and letting their foreheads rest together. Jesse has so many questions, he knows, but there’s time for that later - for now there is only the press of Genji’s body against his, metal hot from the sun but warm in a way that’s undeniably human, deep down within his body, his blood, his heart and soul. There is only Genji, and only this second chance and he’ll be damned if he’s going to waste it.


End file.
